The present invention relates to a new and improved adhesive strap for use with devices designed to immobilize a patient's head during emergency medical treatment and transportation.
One of the more common injuries faced by emergency medical personnel is an injury to the neck of a patient. Such injuries present the possibility of damage to the cervical spine from the injury and the possibility of worsening any such damage during treatment and transportation. Due to the severe impairment of function which may result from cervical spine injuries, much care must be taken to immobilize this region during treatment and transportation.
Patients with cervical spine injuries or suspected cervical spine injuries are conventionally placed in a cervical extrication collar, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 32,219, which restricts the patient's head from motion out of the vertical, erect position, and thus, presumably, limits motion of the spine as well. However, such collars often do not sufficiently restrict movement of the head. Therefore, additional, often jury-rigged measures are used to restrict such movement.
Emergency medical personnel often surround a patient's head and body with sandbags or styrofoam blocks. These devices are usually held in place with athletic tape or other strapping means including other adhesive tapes which are cut to size on site and adhered across the patient's body.
Several devices have been developed to immobilize the head more effectively and more efficiently than this jury-rigging. These include the head immobilizers shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,987,777, 4,589,407, 4,594,995, and 4,718,412, and those sold commercially such as the HeadBed.TM. and HeadBedII.TM. immobilization devices (California Medical Products, Long Beach, Calif.). These devices may obviate the need for such sand-bag or styrofoam block jury-rigging but often still necessitate the use of adhesive strapping means, such as first aid or other tape, to immobilize the patient's head.
Such adhesive strapping means are often not sticky enough to stay adhered to the spine board (or other surface upon which the patient is placed) in the different environmental conditions where it is used (e.g. different conditions of temperature, moisture, or cleanliness of the spine board). Changes in these conditions can lead particularly to insufficient adhesion of the adhesive strap to the spine board or other surface upon which the patient is placed, resulting in inadequate immobilization or complete release of the strap from the spine board. As a result, these strapping means may not efficiently and effectively immobilize the patient's head. Conversely, some adhesive strapping means used to immobilize a patient's head in a head immobilizer are too sticky and cause irritation and injury to the patient's forehead, especially upon removal.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide an adhesive strap for immobilizing a patient's head that provides improved adhesion to a spine board or other surface under adverse conditions, while reducing or minimizing irritation of the patient's skin as a result of contact with the adhesive strap.